EOL

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In a large greenhouse at the Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis, Missouri, there grows a slender sapling of Cinchona pubescens, a tree that has played a remarkable role in human history. Journeying to this artificial tropical forest under glass, Ari Daniel Shapiro asks curators Carmen Ulloa Ulloa and Charlotte Taylor just what makes this famous “fever tree” special. He also learns how it’s possible to open a three-hundred-year-old bundle of dried plant specimens and disappear—happily—into the past. Listen to this Encyclopedia of Life One Species at a Time podcast to hear the story.

Participate

We want to know about the plants that you collect – both the live ones and the flattened and dead ones. Send us your photos and tell us why these plants are interesting to you. Email us at: education(at)eol.org.